Desktop Video Conferencing Best Practices

This page introduces desktop video conferencing, our own e/pop product, followed by a round-up of best practices, hints, tips and tricks as reported by employees and customers that use e/pop every day! 
 

Introduction

Video conferencing has been around for a long time, and for the last two decades the industry mainstay has been fixed-site, boardroom hardware systems with point-to-point lines or dedicated network routes.

Today, the industry is entering a renaissance of sorts, with a new category of HD telepresence studios promising an immersive experience for a few hundred thousand dollars per site, and another new category called desktop video conferencing. The latter is also referred to as browser-based, because users initiate sessions via their web browser; or IP conferencing, which refers to the TCP/IP protocol used over the Internet. Like all new software categories, there are several new buzzwords that mean the same thing. In a few years it will most likely all boil down to web conferencing or simply, online meeting. 

Our own product, e/pop, is squarely in the middle of the new desktop video conferencing category. It is available as software and online service. e/pop is distinguished by its ability to provide high-quality, MULTIPARTY conferences using widely available PC video peripherals, fast desktop sharing, security, and the full complement of general web conferencing features.

IT Deployment Best Practices

While the IT aspects of deployment have become dramatically easier and simpler, and covered by the resources mentioned above, the network user aspects are similar to any new application or web service. The challenge is usually initial adoption. This is often overcome by a small group of users that initially select e/pop for a specific sales, training or travel-reduction initiative. They in turn, introduce e/pop to other employees during the normal course of business. This natural progression can be accelerated by the practices listed below. Over time, this will evolve into a best practices document.

• Initial training.  Complimentary user training is always included. We are happy to host initial user training sessions, whether limited to IT staff, trainers, or open to general network users.

Note: the e/pop conferencing client uses a browser and office application layout, it will be immediately familiar to most users! Less than half our new customers take advantage of our free training program.

• Pocket Reference Guide. Each user gets a 1-page pocket reference guide. This is very similar to a teleconferencing card with instructions for getting started.
• How-to Movies. Each user gets links to on-demand, how-to-movies. These are better for network users that prefer 20 second movie clips to reading manuals.
• Custom Materials. In addition, WiredRed is happy to provide the source material to our introductory training class. You can modify these presentations for your own specific needs.
• Re-use Same Conference Room. Many customers have found that by re-using their own conference rooms, they can skip the extra step of creating a new conference room for each meeting. Examples include My Conference Room, Weekly Meeting, Training Room 1, etc.. Using the same virtual conference room is also very handy because you can use the URL to that conference room in your email footers, electronic business cards, project status reports, and so on.
• Use Desktop Shortcuts or Tray Icon.  By taking advantage of the e/pop Quick Start Client, users are two-clicks away from their own conference room. Or even better, use this utility to create a desktop shortcut, and then you are only ONE step away from meeting anyone in the world. Note: the e/pop Quick Start Client also provides for Outlook and Microsoft Office tool buttons that make it very easy to start a conference and invite attendees. Contact WiredRed for details on making it easier to deploy these quick-start assistants. 

Video Conferencing Best Practices For Network Users

Here are some video-specific rules-of-thumb, volunteered by our customers and employees:

• See yourself. For any formal presentation or marketing event, take a dry run, not just video, but any presentation material you may have. This is especially true if the desktop computer is anything other than your usual PC. If you are in sales and meeting constantly, it's a good idea to scrounge an extra PC or laptop, join your own meeting from that PC too, and keep it in your field of view. Not every day, just initially so that you get a feel for what you and your presentation materials look like to your participants. 
• Reduce gaze angle. This buzz word refers to the angle between your camera and your gaze. The difference is called the gaze angle. You can reduce the gaze angle by putting the camera near your display monitor, preferably the area you watch the most often (in most cases, the top rim, the top-left or the top-right) and/or the areas where you display e/pop video. This will look natural and feel natural too (because you're looking at the other participants). For an added touch, you can look directly into the camera from time to time.
• Make eye contact. When sharing desktops and applications, it's easy to get carried away and concentrate deeply on what you're doing. But just like an in-person meeting, it's always a good idea to break once in a while and re-establish eye contact with your audience. 
• Good lighting helps.  When backlit, you appear dark and hard to see. This may add a bit of unconscious stress to your participants. When illuminated from the side, it can lend a Dr. Evil look to your online personality. It's a good idea to experiment with lighting, possibly adding a desktop lamp to overcome back or side-lighting.
• Apparel. The broadcast TV professionals have it right: solid colors such as light blue and pale yellow work best. Bright white shimmers on broadcast TV, because they use high intensity lights. It won't be so bad for desktop conferencing, but not as good as light blue. When making formal presentations, avoid stripes. Even at high resolution, the process of digitizing, compressing and displaying stripes can yield jagged edges called pixelation and distracting Moire patterns.
• Use a headset. As millions of online players and Skype users already know, for best results with VoIP use a headset. External speakers, and especially laptop speakers right next to a built-in microphone, create nasty feedback loops that are difficult to overcome. Also, avoid the cheap microphones built into webcams. Even the best web cams capable of full-screen video use the cheapest microphones. For the best audio quality, use a headset.
• Move and gesture slowly. Depending on your video quality settings and available bandwidth, it might be helpful to use smooth, slow gestures. Otherwise, your gestures may appear "jumpy".

Here are a few general rules-of-thumb that are even more important during online meetings:

• Start on time. When you run late to a meeting down the hall, your fellow employees know you're in the building and you're just a few minutes late. But when meeting online, your participants don't have that advantage, they have no idea if you even made it to work that day.  Starting on time is even more important in online venues. 
• Mentally check in with your participants. Take a second before launching into the formal agenda and ask how's your day? Or otherwise, make sure your meeting participant isn't mentally checked-out on some urgent matter, cold, flu or family crisis. And if so, offer to reschedule the meeting. After all, one of the primary benefits of meeting online is flexibility.  This is easier to do in person because it comes naturally, don't forget this touch when meeting online.   
• Have a standing agenda or meeting objective. Since e/pop allows live document, desktop and application sharing, virtually anything on your PC can be shared. This is excellent for communicating complex topics and getting things done, but it can also provide great opportunity for diversion. A good tip is to always keep the agenda document open, click back to it from time to time, or even better, use the e/pop "float" option, and float the agenda so that it is always visible. This can be very helpful for large project reviews and meetings with complex agendas.
  

e/pop Hints, Tips & Tricks

• Start low, go high. Most e/pop customers use the Conference menu, and select set all video to LOW, or set all video to MEDIUM, and then PLAY-ALL. Or just PLAY-ALL and accept the defaults. Others take advantage of individual controls and make one or the other video higher quality, float the video, and so on. For best results, when straying from the defaults, start at lower settings and go up, not the other way around. It is also helpful to wait between changes to video settings so that e/pop automatic adjustments have time to optimize the connection. Please keep in mind that for most shared networks, low and medium quality video are more than sufficient for business purposes. Full screen video conferencing should be reserved for sites with sufficient general bandwidth or dedicated network routes.
• Try application or region sharing.  Desktop sharing is by far the easiest way to share anything on your PC. For large meetings, if you are ultimately sharing a PowerPoint presentation or a document, use PowerPoint or Document sharing instead, it will use less bandwidth. If you are sharing a live application, try Application sharing or Region sharing, that way only the relevant sections of your display are being compressed and sent to your participants.
• Implementing QoS may or may not be helpful. QoS is a function of your network infrastructure. As such implementing QoS for VoIP and video may be helpful for your internal employees, but the scope of your network infrastructure does not extend to the public Internet nor your external participants networks. If interested, please click the link above for details.
  
  

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